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Michael Novak

Michael Novak (born 9 September, 1933) is an AmericanCatholic philosopher, journalist, novelist,
and diplomat. The author of more than twenty-five books on the
philosophy and theology of culture, Novak is most widely known for
his book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (1982). In
1994 he was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion,
which included a million-dollar purse awarded at Buckingham Palace.
He writes books and articles focused on capitalism, religion, and the politics of
democratization.

Early life, education,
and family

Novak was born in 1933 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania to a
Slovak American family.[5] He was
married to Karen Laub-Novak, a professional artist and illustrator
who died of cancer in August 2009. They have three children
(Richard, Tanya, and Jana) and four grandchildren.

Novak attended Harvard University to study philosophy and
religion, intending to obtain a doctorate in philosophy of
religion. Novak stated that he thought the philosophy department
was too focused on analytic philosophy, neglecting religion. He
left Harvard after receiving his M.A., and began work as a
writer.

Early
writings

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Second
Vatican Council

Novak worked as a correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter
during the second session of the Second Vatican Council in Rome,
where he also got the opportunity to fulfill a book contract for a
fellow reporter who was not able to complete the project. The
result was Novak's second book, The Open Church, a
journalistic account of the events of the second session of the
Council.

His writings at the time were criticized by the more
Conservative factions in the Church, and apostolic delegate Egidio Vagnozzi
advised US Churchmen to silence him. [6]

Early
books

Early in his career, Michael Novak published two novels: The
Tiber Was Silver (1961) and Naked I Leave (1970). At
the time, he considered the modest $600 advance to be "a fortune."
[7]

Stanford
years

Novak's friendship with the PresbyteriantheologianRobert McAfee Brown during the Second Vatican Council led to a
teaching post at Stanford University, where he
became the first Roman Catholic to teach in the Humanities program. Novak
taught at Stanford University from 1965 to
1968, during the key years of student revolt throughout California.
During this period, he wrote A Time to Build (1967),
discussing problems of belief and unbelief, ecumenism, sexuality, and war. In A Theology for Radical Politics
(1969), Novak makes theological arguments in support of the New
Left student movement, which he urged to advance the renewal of the
human spirit rather than merely to reform social institutions. His
book Politics: Realism and Imagination includes accounts
of visiting American Vietnam War deserters in France ("Desertion"),
the birth and development of the student movement at Stanford
("Green Shoots of Counter-Culture") and philosophical essays on nihilism and Marxism.

SUNY Old
Westbury

Novak left Stanford for a post as dean of a new "experimental"
school at the newly-founded State University of New York at Old
Westbury, Long Island.

Novak's writings during this period included the philosophical
essay The Experience of Nothingness (1970, republished in
1998), in which he cautioned the New Left that utopianism could
lead to alienation and rootlessness. Novak's novel Naked I
Leave (1970) chronicles his experiences in California and in
the Second Vatican Council and his journey from seminarian to
reporter.

Later
career

After serving at Old Westbury/SUNY from 1969 to 1972, Novak
launched the humanities program at the Rockefeller Foundation in
1973-1974. In 1976, he accepted a tenured position at Syracuse
University as University Professor and Ledden-Watson Distinguished
Professor of Religion. In the fall semesters of 1987 and 1988,
Novak held the W. Harold and Martha Welch chair as Professor of
American Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

In the spring of 1978, Novak joined the American Enterprise
Institute for Social Policy Research as a Resident Scholar, a
position he still holds as of 2008. He remains at the American
Enterprise Institute as the George Frederick Jewett Chair of
Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy, and as the Institute’s
Director of Social and Political Studies.[8]

Opinions

Novak believes that Utopian beliefs can lead to the weakening
of social bonds. He wrote that "the family is the human race's
natural defense against utopianism." (The Spirit of Democratic
Capitalism)

He states that religion can 'thrive only in a personal
universe' and not universities or companies, and that Western
Humanism, which he states is the leading belief system of most of
academia, does not ask "the fundamental questions about the meaning
and limits of personal experience" and that "they leave aside the
mysteries of contingency and transitoriness, for the certainties of
research, production, consumption." ("God in the Colleges," A
New Generation: American and Catholic (1964))

Novak states that the Holy Trinity and God
are often thought of in abstract and impersonal terms in
philosophy, and that they should be "thought of as a Communion of
Divine Persons—radiating his presence throughout creation, calling
unworthy human beings to be his friends, and infusing into them his
love so that they might love with it." (From “The Love That Moves
the Sun,” in A Free Society Reader)

Bibliography

No One Sees God: The Dark Night of Atheists and
Believers (2008). ISBN 978-0-385-52610-4.

Washington's God: Religion, Liberty, and the Father of Our
Country (with Jana Novak) (2006).

Universal Hunger for Liberty: Why the Clash of
Civilizations is Not Inevitable (2004).

On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American
Founding (2001).

Business as a Calling (1996).

The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
(1993). ISBN 0-02-923235-X.

Free Persons and the Common Good (1988).

Tell Me Why (1998)

The Open Church (1964, 2002)

Joy of Sports (1976, 1994)

Catholic Social Thought and Liberal Institutions
(1984, 1989)

This Hemisphere of Liberty (1990, 1992)

Will it Liberate (1986)

Toward the Future

Moral Clarity in a Nuclear Age

Ascent of the Mountain, Flight of the Dove

Character and Crime

On Cultivating Liberty

The Fire of Invention

The Guns of Lattimer

Choosing Presidents

A Free Society Reader

Three in One

The New Consensus on Family and Welfare: A Community of
Self-Reliance (Novak et al.) (1987).